On The Rebound

The Blazers broke our hearts. Are we ready to get back with the NBA’s hottest team?

Maybe it was when Kobe’s alley-oop to
Shaq sealed Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals. Maybe it was
when Greg Oden’s knee exploded for the third time or when Brandon Roy
finally ground the last bit of cartilage out of his, forcing him to
retire at age 27. Maybe it was Raymond Felton.

RIP CITY REVIVAL: Blazers fans are witnessing the team’s best start since the 1999-2000 season.

IMAGE: chrisryanphoto.com

Somewhere
between the coked-up Jail Blazers era when swingman Bonzi Wells
declared the fans “really don’t matter to us” and the Felton-led mutiny
against popular coach Nate McMillan, many of us gave up on the Portland
Trail Blazers. (For a piece about the Moda Center's empty seats, go here.)

You
don’t have to feel bad about refusing their come-ons year after year.
It’s been three seasons since the Blazers reached the playoffs. They
haven’t gotten out of the first round of the playoffs since 2000, the
longest such streak in the Western Conference.

The pain and
heartbreak of disappointment, listening to promises that things would
change if you gave them just one more chance—you’ve heard it all before.

But
now, out of nowhere, and for the first time in a generation, the team is
the hottest squad in the league. It’s still early, of course, but as of
press time the Blazers (21-4) had the best record in the NBA.

You don’t even have
to feel bad about underestimating the Blazers—everyone else did, too. As
Sekou Smith of NBA.com put it, the Blazers “snuck up on all of us.”

But
excitement is building. After Nicolas Batum hit a late 3-pointer to seal
the team’s victory over Oklahoma City on Dec. 4, Bill Simmons of ESPN
tweeted, “Rip City just threw its hat in the ring.” Former Blazers coach
Jack Ramsay has compared this team to the one he won the NBA title with
in 1977.

How
did this happen, anyway? Are the 2013 Blazers for real? Are Portlanders
ready to get back into this oft-dysfunctional relationship? Here’s the
story, as best we know it.

The Blazers are good now because Neil Olshey built this team to win now.

NEIL OLSHEY

IMAGE: chrisryanphoto.com

The position of Blazers general manager over the past few years has been, shall we say, a bit unstable.

Consider
the fate of Kevin Pritchard, the general manager who drafted Seattle
native-turned-Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy, current star LaMarcus
Aldridge and spectacular bust Greg Oden as he shepherded the
organization out of the Jail Blazers era.

Pritchard
took over a job famously held by “Trader Bob” Whitsitt, the GM who acquired players like
shooting guard Ruben Patterson, a convicted sex offender who demanded to
be traded unless he got 25 minutes per game and who once claimed “the
devil” told him to curse out his coach.

Pritchard
had an icy relationship with owner Paul Allen and was canned about an
hour before the 2010 draft. His replacement, Rich Cho, lasted less than a
year.

When
Neil Olshey, who’d formerly been GM of the Los Angeles Clippers, was
brought in, his mandate was simple: put out a product Portlanders will
pay to see on a semi-regular basis.

He
achieved that, in large part because of Damian Lillard. The sixth
overall pick in the 2012 draft and the first player selected by Olshey,
Lillard was a point guard out of tiny Weber State University in Ogden,
Utah, who shocked the league by having a historic rookie season. He
became only the third player in history to be unanimously selected
Rookie of the Year, besting the No. 1 pick and pre-ordained “future
top-five player,” Anthony Davis.

But
being marginally watchable for two seasons in a row wasn’t going to be
enough. With a new mandate—keep Aldridge or, if that’s not possible, get
something for him—Olshey issued a public mea culpa, admitting he was
not aggressive enough in his first season as general manager. He then
went out and built himself a team.

The
Blazers’ past team-building efforts included trading high draft picks on
risky players and hoping they’d pan out, like journeymen center Marcus
Camby and small forward Gerald Wallace, that came with an attached
disclaimer: “He’ll be even better when Greg Oden is healthy enough to
play 80 games.”

Not
this season. Olshey made a decision that winning in 2013-14 was of the
utmost importance. He acquired veteran guard Mo Williams from the Utah
Jazz to back up Lillard and brought in 3-point specialist Dorell Wright,
instantly improving the Blazers’ previously woeful bench. He matched
the Minnesota Timberwolves’ offer for Nicolas Batum, signing him through
2016. And he traded for Robin Lopez, the first true center the Blazers
have had since Oden.

Olshey
made a decision that winning now was of the utmost importance, and to
reward his diligence, that’s exactly what the team is doing.

WINNING COMBINATION: Blazers star LaMarcus Aldridge (above center) is having an MVP-type season playing under coach Terry Stotts (below left), who also relies on the steady play of Nicolas Batum (below right).

Photos by Ryan Prouty, Portland Trail Blazers

LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard work well together in a way Aldridge and Brandon Roy never did.

Beckley Mason, a basketball writer for The New York Times,
recently wrote a column about the emerging chemistry between Aldridge
and Lillard. Mason’s story repeated all the well-trod clichés about
teamwork and players assuming their roles, but added that the Blazers
seem to embody it: “[T]he looseness in the locker room imbued the
banalities with profundity.”

Aldridge is a jump-shooting big man in the Dirk Nowitzki mold. Lillard is a hard-driving, take-it-to-the-rim-style point guard.

Aldridge
prefers to hang out around the top of the key, setting picks for
Lillard. Because the Blazers’ young point guard is a tenacious rim
attacker, big defenders leave Aldridge in an effort toprotect
the rim. This is just what Aldridge and the Blazers want, since there’s
no better knock-down shooter from between 15 and 20 feet.

To
mitigate LA’s dominance with the midrange jumper, teams have been
sending a second defender, sometimes the same defender charged with
guarding Lillard, to help out. This doesn’t work either, since Lillard
has shown time and again his shooting range starts when he enters the
building.

Aldridge
is averaging career highs in points (23.5) and field-goal attempts
(19.9) per game as he learns where to position himself so that his young
point guard can get him the ball.

But
Mason’s story was about more than just on-court chemistry. Aldridge and
Lillard are cut from the same cloth: Both are quiet and brooding,
hyperknowledgeable about basketball, and loath to talk about anything
else. Aldridge, a Texas native, has been open about his mother’s battle
with breast cancer, while Lillard has described growing up “in the
’hood” of Oakland, Calif., but both clearly prefer to keep basketball
their primary talking point.

Aldridge
and his first co-star, Roy, got along fine. Roy was the star, on and
off the court; Aldridge appeared comfortable with that and struggled to
become a leader without him. With Lillard, he can once again share the
spotlight, but in a way that complements and elevates both their games.

TO THE RIM: Lillard lays it in during the Blazers’ 90-89 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Nov. 13, beating former Blazer and Portland resident Channing Frye on the play.

IMAGE: Ryan Prouty, Portland Trail Blazers

Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum have figured out their roles.

Batum is the second-highest-paid player
on the Blazers’ roster; Matthews is the third. At about $11 million and
$7 million per season, respectively, some might be asking for these two
guys to take on more important roles.

Luckily,
Batum and Matthews haven’t listened to that chatter. Both of Portland’s
wing players are doing exactly what they need to do. Matthews was never
meant to be a leading scorer: He was originally brought in as a backup
for Roy.

This
season, with Aldridge and Lillard humming, Matthews has had less of an
offensive burden, and because of that, he’s come alive. He is currently
hitting almost half of his 3-point shot attempts, while averaging a
career high of just over 16 points per game.

And
when you get into “advance metrics” like Player Efficiency Rating—a
standardized measure of per-minute production—you find Matthews’ rating
is the highest in his six-year career, 20 percent above the league
average.

As
for Batum, the 25-year-old Frenchman is also having his best season,
PER-wise. His real value, however, can still be shown in the
meat-and-potatoes stats. Batum is ahead of or tied with his career-high
averages in defensive rebounds, offensive rebounds, total rebounds,
assists and steals.

This
season, Aldridge is going to be an All-Star for the third time, and
Lillard is likely to join him. Meanwhile, behind them Matthews and Batum
have been steady as the team’s third- and fourth-best players.

L&L: Damian Lillard (0) and Robin Lopez (42) get set for a Blazers possession against the Houston Rockets.

IMAGE: chrisryanphoto.com

They’re healthy.

The Blazers made a number of changes over
the past few seasons in a concerted effort to get the team competitive
again—new head coach, new general manager, new team president, new arena
name, new fast-food promotion—but one of the most important has also
been the most underreported.

In
May, the Blazers parted ways with longtime head athletic trainer Jay
Jensen, who, during his 19 years with the organization, was present
during the premature destruction of the careers of Roy and Oden because
of knee injuries.

To
replace Jensen, the Blazers turned to Dr. Chris Stackpole. His
techniques differ from his predecessor’s. Olshey characterized his new
hire as having “a vision and blueprint for developing innovative and
evidence-based sports medicine services.”

That’s
some opaque praise, but clearly, the organization finally felt it was
time to move on from Jensen, who became a lightning rod for criticism
back when it seemed like a different Blazers player was getting carted
off the court every other game.

And
hey, the Blazers have been without a major injury since Stackpole came
onboard. Something is working. Will it work forever? No one knows. So
far, so good.

Terry Stotts is a head coach with something to prove.

The Blazers’ second-year head coach
started his career in 1990, working under future Hall of Famers Rick
Carlisle and George Karl. Stotts’ previous head-coaching stops were in
Atlanta and Milwaukee. He posted losing records with both.

Stotts
came to Portland with fewer ties to basketball in the Pacific Northwest
than his predecessor, Nate McMillan. His first season wasn’t great. He
did the best he could with a roster so thin that Luke Babbitt—currently
playing ball in Russia—got nearly 12 minutes a night. The finer points
of Stotts’ struggle were lost on everyday fans who probably couldn’t see
past Portland’s season-ending 13-game losing streak.

This
season, Stotts has been mixing and matching his assets to put the right
personnel package on the court for every possession. He looks for
favorable matchups, de-emphasizing isolation-style ball built around a
superstar. Karl had success with the method in both Seattle and Denver.

So
far, the Blazers’ head coach has coaxed all he can out of Thomas
Robinson, a raw player traded twice in his rookie season. Stotts has
looked like a genius for elevating Joel Freeland to backup center over
Meyers Leonard. He’s also employed the use of iPads to allow players to
study game footage practically in real time. Most of all, he’s managed
his rotations, so that this season there are no second-quarter letdowns
or blown fourth-quarter leads.

In
his first season, Stotts was stately, almost professorial, as he walked
the sideline. As the Blazers have shocked the league, though, he’s grown
incrementally more flamboyant. An outburst over a few bad calls in a
recent home win over the defending Northwest Division champion Oklahoma
City Thunder excited the Moda Center crowd and his assistant coaches.
He’s even developing a trademark smirk.

If
you’re having an unexpected level of success and are considered by
Carlisle, your former mentor, to be a virtual lock for Coach of the
Year, you’re allowed some swagger.

Robin Lopez came to town.

POWER IN THE POST: The addition of Robin Lopez has boosted the Blazers’ inside presence.

IMAGE: chrisryanphoto.com

The Blazers—on pace to win more than 60
games and projected to have a 98 percent chance of making the
postseason—will go only as far as Aldridge and Lillard take them. But
center Robin Lopez has been just as important to the team’s early
fortunes.

Lopez,
a 25-year-old Stanford product, is a late bloomer, accomplishing little
with the Phoenix Suns before moving to New Orleans, where he started
rounding into form. He’s not an All-Star like his twin brother, Brook,
who plays for the Brooklyn Nets, but the addition of a serviceable
center has turned the Blazers from a lottery team to a contender and
transformed Aldridge from an All-Star to an MVP candidate.

Coming
off the best stretch of his career last year in New Orleans, Lopez is
averaging three more rebounds per game than he did last season. He’s
also averaging 1.5 blocks a game, while shooting 50 percent from the
field and 80 percent from the free-throw line.

Most
important, though, Lopez is playing 30 minutes per game, the most of
his career. This means that Aldridge is almost never forced to play
center. Last season, Aldridge frequently played out of his natural
position, which is part of the reason the Blazers couldn’t stop any of
their opponents from scoring and ended the year ranked 26 out of 30
teams on defense.

Lopez,
a gangly but deceptively strong 7-footer, loves comic books, has a
goofy hairdo and eschews the fancy clothes of his teammates in favor of
polo shirts, faded blue jeans and white Adidas shell-toe sneakers. He’s
easily the most Portlandy Blazer since Channing Frye.